


Don't Let Me Down

by rolloverbeethoven



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jail, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, aaa i suck at tags, jailbreak, they're all a bit hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:27:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24439699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rolloverbeethoven/pseuds/rolloverbeethoven
Summary: I wrote chapter 1 of this a while ago but i changed it all up and its basically a new story so i hope you give it a go :)John, Paul and George are thrown into jail, and they plot to get out with the help of a mr. ringo starr.sorry about the bad summary i'm not very good at them.:)
Relationships: George Harrison & John Lennon, George Harrison & John Lennon & Paul McCartney, George Harrison & John Lennon & Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr, George Harrison & Ringo Starr, John Lennon & Paul McCartney
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Don't Let Me Down

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I posted chapter 1 of this fic before but I changed it now :)
> 
> Any feedback would be really appreciated but if not that's fine too <3
> 
> Thanks xx

It was around 1959-ish that we all got sent to the prison. George, Paul and me. All caught in a ‘gang’. Quite a story, too. It was summer when we got locked up. But a Northern summer, and despite the rare rays of sun, we were still all freezing our balls off.

Paul and I had shared a room. I had been glad to share a room with Paul. It put my mind at rest that neither of us would have to sleep next to some random homicidal maniac or something. I did worry for George, always kept an eye on the lad. It had always been my job to look after the two of them. George’s cellmate turned out to be a real nice guy anyways, but I’ll get to that later.

It had been a fair ordeal that had landed us at that prison. It was hard to tell where it started. But I’ll start from the very start, so there’s no confusion.

I was seven years old when my mother died. She was struck by a car driven by a drunken policeman. My father had left home years before. There had been some hope that I’d be able to stay with my aunt, but her husband having died only months before, I was surrendered to the church orphanage.

That time was cold. Whenever I try and remember, all I feel is an unwavering chill down my spine. I had a few friends, none very close, just friends. Two years later, a six-year-old boy moved into the home for boys. It was nothing out of place, boys came and went each month. But there was something so saddening about the poor little kid, he was the posh type you’d be jealous of and wish karma upon, but feel sorrow when it hit him. 

He had a soft little face, I remember. He had been crying on his bed the day I first remember taking notice of him. I had gone up to him. My mischievous nature made me naturally popular amongst the other boys, and so many of them followed me. Really, I’d gone up to him to embarrass him for crying. But there was something about him, something I’d never really seen before. 

I’d soon learnt that his father had died from war injuries a month or two after he’d been born, and he’d been surrendered to the church last week when his mother died of some cancer. He introduced himself as Paul, and I introduced myself as John. 

I guess I kind of saved him, really. The lads were all a bit rough, even at the ages of 10 and 11. I tried to protect Paul the best I could, and we became brothers.

A year later, George showed up at the same place. He’d been a smaller, rough-looking kid. I wasn’t very interested in him at first, same as all the other newcomers really. But Paul got to know him. He started following Paul around, who followed me around. He was persistent, and eventually I was forced to get to know him.

I’m glad I did, too. George became one of my best mates, and the three of us became inseparable. I guess we were all tired of missing our families that we kind of made our own. We were brothers, acted like it too. 

It had been a particularly daring plan that, I’m proud to say, belonged almost solely to me and that had gotten us out of the orphanage. At that point, I was 17 years old, Paul and George were 14 and we were sick to bloody hell of corporal punishment and religious rambles, and we were sure we could make it better on our own. Paul had packed all of our stuff into one suitcase, and I’d snuck it into the outside bushes during lunch. We escaped that night, nobody was the wiser. Well, except for Mother Harriet. She’d very nearly caught me in the pantry with a loaf of bread and jar of jam underneath my jumper, but I’d managed to get out somehow and meet with George and Paul in front of the fence.

We’d been free at last. The feeling of euphoria that evening was indescribable. If only I knew it wasn’t to last. I remember that night like any other, we’d wrapped ourselves in the blanket’s we’d taken and slept underneath a table in some abandoned toolshed. It was unreasonably cold that night, but it was still the soundest sleep I’d had in a while. 

The next morning we’d figured they would be out looking for us. None of us wanted to stay in the town anymore, we had nothing left. Paul had taken us all to some spot he had known of. A platform. We were confused at first, but he explained that if you ran fast enough you could make it easy onto the Manchester-bound steamer that came every fourth hour. How he knew of it, I don’t know, but I was sure grateful he did. 

We ran along the 9am train heading East. I was the fastest out of us three, and I got into the already-moving carriage the quickest. Paul jumped in after me, throwing in the suitcase. For a moment I was afraid George wouldn’t reach in time. I nearly fell out of the carriage myself, trying to grab a hold of his forearms. In a moment of luck, I managed to reach and pull him in.

Our way of getting food, clothes or shelter was to steal or beg. One time, George had managed to nick a banjo out through someone’s open window. We all knew how to play a bit, George was the best of us. We’d often get enough money to buy a loaf of ration bread or a quarter dozen apples from his begging alone.

We became talented conmen. At some point, we even made enough money to buy a second-hand guitar. It was probably a stupid thing to do, because we were living on half and apple and a slice of bread a day, but it sure lightened the mood.

We found ourselves hopping from town to town on the very helpful cargo trains. Our only issue was overstaying our welcome. It only took a stolen bar of chocolate or a missing bag of apples to have the police right on your tails. Too often we had stayed too long, and it had more often than not ended in a police chase. Most times we got away, too fast and clever. But word got around between towns faster than we had anticipated. Apparently we had a reputation by disgruntled members of the community as ‘youngsters who oughta be taught an honest day’s work.’ I never disagreed, but what other choice did we have? Nobody would hire us, we were on our own.

It was in some backwater town just above Wigan that our luck ran out. We’d been living outside the orphanage for nearly three years now. It was a misjudgement, on George’s part. He and Paul had been recognised by the police constable when they’d been out busking in front of the pharmacist. Paul had said the two started running and split up in either direction, George with the banjo and Paul with the money. The policemen had followed George instead, so Paul ran back to where I was. We ran two streets across so I could assess the situation from afar. I hadn’t been very worried, I had much confidence in George. Turns out it’s quite difficult to jump a two-metre fence with a banjo. I was surprised he hadn’t dumped the banjo before climbing up the wall, but that’s George for you.

Paul and I had watched, helpless, as one policeman pulled him off the fence and slammed him into the concrete pavement. I was so scared they had killed him, but he somehow stood up as they dragged him away to the police station.

I remember feeling helpless and desperate. I feel guilty even now for even considering then to leave George and run away with Paul. Logically, that would have made sense, George would get a year or two in some youth correctional facility, and Paul and I would stay free. But something wouldn’t let me. Perhaps it was the thought of George sitting alone and abandoned for the second time in his sixteen years, or Paul, who had already decided to go back for George, but I’m glad I did go back for him.

George was glad too, apparently, because he spent that night in the gaol cell talking about how sorry he was for getting caught and how happy he was we came. I told him it wasn’t his fault, it was bad luck. At least we had one another

We shouldn’t have ended up here. But the police were bitter with being fooled, and they wanted us locked up and gone. Of course, they didn’t feel like petty theft and squatting was enough for Walton prison, so they tried to get us on murder. Just our bastard luck that some poor sod’s body was found two days before they caught us. It was obvious enough that it was unrelated, but they still sent us to Walton prison for the longest you could serve for theft.

And here I was, a week into a nine-year sentence.

  
  



End file.
